Angel of Mercy
by Spirit De Mortis
Summary: V/Evey after her torture at the hands of V. rated NC17 for sexual content.
1. Chapter 1

**Okay, I have always loved V for Vendetta and can't believe it took me this long to attempt writing something on it. *is ashamed* **

**Anywho... a couple weeks ago I had a dream about V... which was strange in itself but whatever. It sent me into a spiral of 'I love V for Vendetta' stuff. I looked, naturally, for fanfictions and was ever so pleased I found as many as I did. I am, however going off the beaten track here.  
**

**Some may have a problem with it, but I don't care. When I read V with Evey people ALWAYS take his mask off. If you do, its great! its your prerogative LOL, I however wanted to see him actually make love to her (without being OOC and being a complete beast about it and KEEPING HIS MASK ON!) There weren't any exactly like that, but I admit I didn't read EVERY one of them either. There was one where he pleasured her, he kept his mask on, but he didn't get any pleasure out of it...GUH... to me its not incredibly important for their lips to touch. So keep the mask on. so there... LOL... enjoy! :)**

**Pairing: V and Evey  
**

**Rating: NC17  
**

The sweet light scent of lavender and honeysuckle loomed in the steam filled bathroom, the cling of droplets sliding over the ornate mirror as Evey Hammond drew the towel over the back of her head, her hair too short to spend more than a swipe of time that she used for the rest of her body. The bathroom seemed lavish… too perfectly rich to be underground but such as it is, it reflected, like everything else in this wonderful dungeon, the mysterious and whimsical fancy and character of its owner.

Owner may be a heavy word and V would certainly correct her if she said 'owner' to him about the art and books and music he adorned his home with. Without it, it would be a maze of tunnels with nothing but the accompaniment of echoes. Footfalls of many issuing from the sound of one, a mere laugh from a single set of lungs would sound like a jovial theatre reacting to the jesters antics.

Evey brought the towel down her back slowly to lightly take the spring of dewy shower water off her skin as she mused. Over the time she had been here with V, she had experienced a cacophony of feelings and emotion for the man in the mask as well as the antonymous sensations of appreciation and not a little careful zealous curiosity about who he is and what lays behind the mask. He was alluring to her in a lot of ways, yet she was also afraid of him. He is so uncharted.

She had escaped him before, and only now did she see that her flee was not out of fear of him, but perhaps fear of herself and what she found herself feeling, despite his action and vehemence in vengeance and retribution, about this veiled entity who seemed beautiful in one aspect… and completely horrifying in another.

Only recently did she discover in herself the ability to feel beyond the sanctum of her own body; being molded into a drone of civilization in the reclamation project for children of _neo demagogue(1)_ parents who stood against London's fascist upheaval; she was able to sense other things than the mundane pitfall of regular life, run of the mill stuff that everyone felt and the clouded emotions they were too afraid to experience lest a black bag be placed over their head and they are irradiated from the world like they never existed.

It may have been the weeks she spent in V's containment cell, reading letters from a time long passed, starving, cold, sick, lonely, wanting and wishing for any other sign of care… even at the time of her imprisonment, daring to wish for that frozen forever grinning mask of V to come in and sweep her out of Creedy's holding cell as she clings to him, his arms around her heroically. It was hard not to think of him in this situation. By being thrust into it herself, reading another prisoner's log of the events as it happened, dropping to her lowest state… scraping the dregs of her misery with desperate claws, she found a higher level of understanding herself in the deepest and darkest of all her hours. It was like she was reborn, a new Evey Hammond walked through that door from the savage pit of the deepest and evilest part of V's mind and into a warmer more homey atmosphere of The Shadow Gallery, a new Evey Hammond screamed at V… called him _evil_… called him _sick_… knowing he was right, she collapsed in his arms, tears pouring down her face as she looked up into that mocking yet soothing grin of a mask. The mask she had simultaneously hated and loved. His voice so soft, the purr of a content beast even when his words stung like a venomous bite and killed as quickly. Oh his voice… he can disarm you with his versed ways, the mere swish of his hair, or cloak was as mesmerizing as the magic a child would see in a fantasy movie. V was everything Evey had imagined would strut about on stage, parade his pretty poems and acute knowledge of all the finest in the world the way a fiddler would play a fiddle, his hand expertly and without apparent effort plucking the right combination of strings to cast his spell. Oh… V's hands… the hands so gentle that then on her revolution that her captivity had been in itself a mask to uncover hers touched her shivering body, so warm even from under the leathered gloves, only known to her before this by understanding were rough with her. They hurt her… bruised her, tortured her. These delicate yet deadly hands, scarred too beneath the cover of the shiny black gloves, picked her up, held her… soothed her when not mere hours before that; or so it seemed… time was not a cognizant thing in a dark cell with naught but your own dark thoughts, her face was being held down in a bowl of water, keeping her submersed until she nearly faded away.

Now… it was like she was sensitive to everything. She can feel the emotions of her captor… her friend, her enemy, her lover. A couple months had passed since her liberation from the confines of enforced societal thought forms and the plunge into the sweet freedom of gratis notion which made her stronger than she even dared to suppose. It made inhibitions about her feelings toward certain things fade away. Where once her fear of ideas in her head about this veiled vigilante frightened and drew her away from him, the thoughts now to her seemed to be expected… wanted even after the abuse she suffered at the hands of the idea in her head, the feel of his humanity caressing her.

Before this, before this night she stood in the center of the bathroom drying off her slim yet shapely body, before her reinvention in V's reconstructed memory, she had only ever really viewed him as the idea he presented… even being seduced secretly by his suggestion… the tall… darkly clothed, lithe and strong form… like a doll… a fine doll, V presented himself to her in a manner of a doll shop proprietor displaying his premium merchandise to the ogle-eyed child mystified by the center attraction known to Evey as "V". She admitted to being attracted to him. Not to his face… or his mask, but to him in general. Her figurative fingers would touch the fragile glass separating them, wishing she could feel beyond the boundaries but was not able too at the time.

Now, she had seen him more human. Where before he was just a walking idea, a misshapen scheme wrapped in a long black doublet, he was now the embodiment of the torture Valerie went through… his own torture, his deep-seated and troubled mind forever hidden behind the metal Fawksian mask. But when she came from the ashes of her reinvention she felt the retreat… people can say they are sorry, or they didn't mean it and not feel it, not believe it… but when Evey asked V why he did this to her she felt him recoil as if genuinely disgusted with himself for what he did to her. He turned those black well eyes away from her as she listed to him the things he did to her, shoving his abuse back in that mocking face to which he surely wasn't feeling at that moment; he was human… weakened and sickened by his own actions forcing her to live through what he had… what Valerie had… what he was destroying London's government for.

The soft white towel felt and smelt of him somehow, as if everything he touched he left his mark on. Not physically but supernaturally. The soft white glow of the semi wet towel almost felt like the whisper of his breath coming out of the mouth slit of the white grinning lips with the slightly tinted pink lower lip. Yes, her rollercoaster relationship with V had allowed her to see passed all the hate in his heart and the fear in hers. She can sense his humanly ways even though she had seen him before, her senses shut off, watching him cook for her as she sat at the table speaking with him about art and music… all the things that were sadly forgotten. It seemed like eons ago that he fed her breakfast and they first talked about how Parliament was a symbol and his act to destroy it was also a symbol. But now… a few months away from his moment of victory, he had done more for her than merely teach her about the form and function of symbolism while she ate real butter on her egg for the first time in years. She was naïve then… so naïve.

The towel slipped from her body and she placed it on the rack near the sink and draped the silken violet robe over her shoulders and tied it about her waist. She turned and left the bathroom, her bare feet padded over the cold stone of the floor and down the hall toward the main gallery; the scent of shower still clinging to her. Her hand fell on the heavy door separating the hall her soft bare footfalls echoed in to the main gallery and her eyes adjusted to the lack of light. V had turned in, evidently. The overhead lighting was off and the display track lighting made odd angles of statures and the corners of paintings stick out like the dark shadows were reaching for her.

Evey wasn't very tired at the moment but sleep could come at any time and she wasn't going to try to rush it so she walked over to the ever lit jukebox and pressed a single button. It was V's… and her favorite song. She stood with her hands pressed to the sides of the display case, looking down into the inner workings of the elaborate music box.

_You drove me, nearly drove me,  
Out of my head;  
While you never she'd a tear._

_Remember, I remember,_  
_All that you said;_  
_Told me love was too plebeian (2)_

Ah Julie London's voice seduced the dark with sexy quavering inflection to which Evey could only mouth silently. V had nearly driven her out of her head. He didn't until the end show some human grief without overtly weeping at the destruction he made on a woman he never wanted to hurt. However… his actions, and not through spoken words, suggested he may really think love was too plebeian even for his taste. But now… with London's sultry voice and the dark surrounding her, Evey felt V's presence like a looming spirit engulfing her. She even had to look over her shoulder to see if he wasn't really there, the shadows and music play tricks on her sometimes. V had a knack of detaching himself from the Gallery and stand as still as his statues before she knew he was there. But still… even the idea of his body shedding from the gloomy corners, a prick of white that was his face like an formless apparition floating toward her in the dark still sent shivers up her spine and goose flesh to erupt up her arms as he whispers in that sweet gravelly voice _'…Evey…'_like autumn leaves windblown over grass.

Hearing him say her name even in her head made her womanhood ache for him. Never before this had she ever considered being truly and deeply in love with someone. Her past had reared the uglier side of attraction where it was mostly physical desirability and little deeper than what you can delve into when shedding your clothing. Yet…

Evey turned; she could feel the silken material of the loose fitting robe caress the contours of her naked body that wasn't pressed to her angled or curved points, mostly at her hips, her shoulders and the peeks of her breasts. She looked toward the shaded arch to the hall that leads to V's bedroom. She had never been down that way. He never told her she couldn't but out of respect for his privacy… the respect he gave her… the only time he'd been in the room now dubbed as hers after she had gotten there on the first night, was in fact the first night when he carried her bridal style into the room and lay her down on the bed, making sure her body appeared comfortable before he left and never entered that room again while they had the idea that it was _her room_.

She could not help the secret… perhaps not so secret anymore by the hints she carelessly let slip that she knew V was too receptive to miss… the longing to go down that previously untraveled hall, open his door and be his visitor in the night. She would make love to him… if it was the only joy he would ever get before his inevitable fate come the 5th… and who knows… maybe her fate too, she would do that. Not only for him, but because she wanted it too.

Evey knew he would resist, even tell her he doesn't deserve it… or is not comely enough to have her see him when it came time to bare more than just his soul and love to her, likely even tell her that he can't love. Evey smiled because it seemed just the song and dance he would play if she swept upon him with intent to make not only his body alight with passion but his voice. He rarely spoke over a casual level, even in the heat of battle his banter was even. The longer she knew him, the more passion he would allow to come out but never in the manner she wanted to hear.

Some part of her mused as she slid away from the jukebox, another song sliding in after Cry me a river by Julie London was over. Her hands, as her eyes closed, traveled up her own body as she swayed to the soft sound of Dean Martin filling the space like his voice was the embodiment of V.

_Retorna me _

_Cara mia ti amo _

_Solo tu, solo tu, solo tu, solo tu _

_Mio cuore (3)  
_

V would never be comfortable bearing more than he already has. The skin of his hands were accidental she happened to come across him as he had the gloves off while cooking. Beside the little bit of neck sometimes seen and the bob of his jaw as he spoke peeking out from under the high collared black material or the white fabricated jaw of his mask. She never really considered seeing him without the mask. She knew she had fallen in love with him more deeply than she had ever fallen before and merely by his inner self, as introverted and mysterious as it was. She couldn't deny that when she first met him in that alley when the Fingermen were threatening to rape her, scared yes, but some part of her saw the way he moved… his doggerel as he struck down the offenders with effortlessness and hardly a hitched breath, she felt some sort of desire revolving around him.

The strangeness in the sexual and enigmatic herald brought her breath to a slow and trailing standstill as she listened to his character elucidation with much verbal dancing that she was stupefied. He had hardly changed in that forte, his words like arms wrapped around her most of the time, either shielding her or comforting her. She learned to fall in love with that man in the alley… the gilded visitor in a Guy Fawkes mask.

She even cherished the notion that she would never ask him to reveal his face to her. She would never feel the need to ask him to remove his own sanctuary for her sake. She knew he was burned… scarred. She knew he would be repulsed by the thought of revealing himself so openly to her. Maybe over time he would feel comfortable with it, but she need not pressure him; not in light of events to come.

Why remove the mask when it mattered not to her what he looked like under it. Yes, the mask was a façade… or veneer as he would say it, but it is how she fell for him, looking into the masks face, learning to interpret the emotions beneath rather than having them overtly displayed by a raise of his brow ridge or a curve of his lips. The tilt of his head and the slight breath of movement from his curtain of hair to the posture of his black clad body, let alone the energy he emits was enough for her to allow him the safety of his disguise. She didn't need him to reveal himself completely to love him and that was what made her know it wasn't just sexual. Oh yes, she wanted him sexually… but she also craved his intelligence, his acumen, his artisan ways; even his vendetta.

If he felt one day he could show himself to her, then she would allow it to happen on its own time. She did not want to scare him off with ideas that she would not have him if he kept hidden. She felt the Dean Martin song end, his sensual voice coming to an end and as another song slipped into place she opened her eyes and looked back at the ach leading to V's room. She wondered if he was awake in there. Her stomach fluttered and clenched pleasurably as she thought of him reciprocating a tentative breath of nervous passion as she slid herself over his long powerful body. Rarely does he touch unless to crush or hurt. So such soft caresses and warmth pressing on him with ardor would be something wholly new to him.

_Oh I do believe  
in all the things you say  
what comes is better that what came before_

_And you'd better come come, come come to me  
better come come, come come to me  
Better run, run run, run run to me  
Better come (4)_

Cat Power gave Evey the incentive to take a step forward toward the precipice like her words were fingers on her back pushing her in V's direction… the long dark tunnel to V's abode, his inner sanctum. Her feet fell without sound as the dark shadow gave way to a heavy wooden door left partially open as if beckoning her. What sort of things did he keep closest to him? The things only meant for his eyes to see where he is most free from restraint? It thrilled her to see him lying in a large perhaps circular bed, overly lavish in design which would suit his apparent taste, his body still wholly clad in black, his face unmasked but hidden by the darkness. A part of her wanted, upon opening his door, to see his body on the bed, the natural white glow if the mask; like a beacon, enticing her still further into his space.

Still she had to travel his hallway, some smaller doors lined its length but there was a door down at the end that her eyes fell on and felt instinctively that it was the door to his room. It was like a light the way it drew her eyes, as if years of him setting his hands on it had left an impression of himself in the wood forever more. She let out a slow nervous breath as she came within arm's reach of the door and stopped, lifting her slender arm to touch the wood around the metal antique hinges that looked like they dated back to the middle ages and it tingled with an electric ambience, so much like his presence does. Her hand slipped down to the circular cuff that offered means to open the door and she hesitated.

*/*/*

Earlier tonight during the moment she ate her dinner, V sat with her, customarily she ate in his company, but he ate alone. She was never bothered by this, understanding why being alone was important to him when he ate. They spoke as they often did as she dined and he watched her eat, he lounged in the chair next to her, his long black legs crossed in a casual manner, his hands, as they often are, clasped in front of him, his head tilted to the side marginally as if surveying her. If one did not feel V for what he is… know his oddities such as they are, one would assume he was bored or asleep. But he stayed like that… speaking fervently to her, interested and engaged in conversation, always pleased to exchange information and stories with her. She never once felt he was disinterested in what she said or did. Just as she could no more feign the attention she felt for him.

Tonight's events during her nightly meal led to them reciting Romeo and Juliet together… Perhaps that was what lead her to feeling this way… the way his voice carried such heavy words with passion set her heart skipping beats here and there, forgetting the foot, eating and drinking him as he sat there, her perfect Romeo.

(5) "_Farewell, farewell! One kiss and I'll descend." _V said in his velvet voice that she could clearly hear the smile on his lips and the purr on his tongue, she could feel him looking at her intently and oh… how it made her yearn as she thought for a moment, Juliet's lines and hoped in the romantics of the moment she didn't spoil the verse.

_(6) "Art thou gone so? Love, lord, ay, husband, friend! I must hear from thee every day in the hour, for in a minute there are many days: O, by this count I shall be much in years ere I again behold my Romeo!"_ She felt her lips form the words and new somehow his eyes were watching her mouth too. They came out as effortlessly as she may have actually been Juliet. Her heart hammered and wondered if he could hear it… or feel it. For when he spoke the next line, it was softer still, his hands came unclasped, one rested on his knee and the other came to the table top, drawing idle circles on the laminate top.

_(7) "Farewell! I will omit no __opportunity__ that may convey my greetings, love, to thee."_V said. The smile was gone from his voice but a dutiful sort of lust pinched it when he said the word 'love' to her. She noticed and leaned forward, more to keep it going because she felt herself being pulled in even more by her heart, not wanting it to stop, than to cover up whatever he felt at the words he said.

_(8) "__O think'st thou we shall ever meet again?" _Evey said quickly on a whisper. V tilted his head the other way and hesitated for a moment. There was absolutely no way he didn't know the next line… it was as if he was deciding how best to say it. His legs came uncrossed and he leaned forward slightly to her, his voice lower still.

_(9) "I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve for sweet discourses in our time to come."_

Evey drew a bit closer, so moved by him. They had shared poetry and play acts before but not this intensely.

(10) "_O God, I have an ill-divining soul! Methinks I see thee, now thou art below, as one dead in the bottom of a tomb: Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale._ "She swallowed nervously as she finished the line, looking into that mask… was he shaking? Was his breath bated and his heart hammering? He could very well be pale with nervousness under that mask, but when he spoke next; his voice did not indicate it.

_(11) "And trust me; love, in my eye so do you: Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!" _V said and the resonance of his voice seemed to shake the walls. For a moment they sat looking at one another, breath shallow and eager. She leaned in, in spite of herself, his head drawing back only marginally to keep her face in sight as she tilted her head to kiss him. He didn't stop her but she felt his leg muscle tense under her palm when she used his leg as a brace to bring herself closer to him. She felt a sharp exhale come from the inside of the mask and knew he was shocked. She froze with her mouth mere inches from the metal pink lipped smile, wanting to desperately kiss him but knew it wasn't the right moment so she pulled away. Her cheeks flush as she looked down at the temporarily forgotten meal with an embarrassed smile on her face, afraid to look at him as her hand came away from his thigh and… to her horror, her other hand came away from hold his other hand on the table loosely.

"Sorry, V. You made a convincing Romeo… I forgot myself for a moment. I didn't mean to scare you." She said with her face aiming at the plate. V returned fluidly to his normal position with his head tilted and his legs crossed, hands firmly clasped at his lap.

"And a convincing Juliet you are, Evey. I don't scare easily… I ponder the riddles of spontaneity far too often to let it rattle my core. Merely frozen for the act, if it were meant to happen, would still happen whether I try to stop it or not.' V nodded his head as she looked at him, perplexed. She knew for a fact that her leaning in to kiss him had thrown him off a little, despite what he said, he perhaps felt she knew this so he added with a wry smile in his voice "Eat your dinner, Evey, before it gets too cold."

**To be concluded in the next chapter**

**reference points  
**

_(1)Neo-demagogues – Rabble-Rouser. Name used to describe V and Evey by Prothero in V for Vendetta. _

_(2)Julie London – Cry me a river_

_(3)Dean Martin – Return to me_

_(4)Cat Power – I found a reason_

_(5-11) William Shakespeare – (Capulet's Room) Romeo and Juliet_

_(12) Shakespeare_

_(13) Thomas Hood _


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks to those reading and reviewing. This is to how I have been working on it. But you know how it is... work... college... RL get in the way frequently. However I am not ready to just abandon this. Again, thanks for the support! **

She wasn't sure at the time if he was telling her not to do it again. Normally he would say it. He would not say it outright but recite some poetry or line from a long forgotten movie or play to justify his feelings on the matter. She did not get that from his reaction to her lips coming so close to him. He seemed shocked, of that she was certain. But he was unusually quiet as they sat on separate sides of the couch watching the news about the war in America, the riots breaking out in London, civilians fighting the Fingermen.

_In the semi dark, half the lights in the Gallery were off and she'd be damned if she was imagining his head turning ever so slightly to look at her, the glow of the television setting her skin alight. She could feel that Fawksian smile and dark fabric eyes roving over her like hands and it tingled her body. His body always seemed on edge like he wanted to say something but could not make it come out._

_Oh god if only she could bring herself to do it for him, but fear as it is kept her from crossing boundaries. She would rather face a garrison armed to the teeth coming after her with intent rather than tell him how she felt. Honestly, if he wasn't aware after the dinner recitation, then he truly could not love or feel a passionate embrace outside of his ardor to make the government pay for what they had done to him and other innocent people._

_The news was over and soon she stood before he turned off the television and plunged them into deeper shadow. Track lighting illuminated and cast lines of light that reflected off the mask and it was a bitter temptation she had to fight back to not throw herself into his arms and kiss that patch of neck exposed from the collar, the hair and his mask. She nearly did, her legs flitted forward in a jerking motion as they may have been stuck on the floor. Her nerve failed her as he looked up at her, quiet. She knew he was waiting. She had pictured herself sliding across the length of the black leather couch and placing her left palm on his black clad thigh, feeling the strong muscle clench at the touch of her warm hand and jitter into a relaxation as the sudden uneasiness left him. Of course, because his mask had blocked his face, she could not see the trepidation he was trying to hide… but his beguiling smile; no, the masks smile, held more emotion to her than he probably realized himself._

_As if the touch of her palm to his thigh wasn't enough, she would come close enough so she could hear the slight whisper of his breath through the mouthpiece of the mask, shaky and shallow. Evey knew better about V that he would do everything in his power to appear in control, it was easy for him, his face, where a lot of people read human emotion was forever smiling. However, Evey liked to think his arousal, hidden by shades of deception was paramount and he fought to maintain that front. He was romantic in his own quiet and bedeviling way because others couldn't read him. Evey had been with him long enough to know every quirk of his head or shrug of his shoulders, the twitch of his elbows or position of his hips, back and legs can tell her exactly what he is experiencing._

_If she was allowed to continue forward with her imaginings, her hand would travel up his thigh and trace the strong contours of his hip and up over the tunic but feel his hard stomach muscles quiver under her sliding hand, all the while his cloth black squint-eyed gaze and whispery breath keeps pace with her forward motion, her left thigh coming up over his left thigh and descending onto his lap, the leather of the couch squeaking against the bare skin on her lower legs revealed from under the hem of the loose fitting capris she wore._

_Evey stood there and looked down at V who returned her gaze and she could feel herself clenching, the warmth was maddening, imagining she could feel a hot hard yet velvety softness pressed against her as his steel grip hands clutched at her spread thighs, lifting up and pushed himself against her. She could feel his hardness separating her and even between the materials of their clothing, his heat obvious against the quickly moistening center between her legs._

_"V… oh…' Evey whispered, the voice in her head sounded provoked and desperate. She could feel her hips moving forward to bear down on his hardness with her small pearl of pleasure that throbbed as he rose to meet her again. Her arms slunk around his neck and his hair coming to drape over her forearms as her lips brushed lightly, butterfly kisses across the white painted metal of the Fawksian mask that she had come to love and find sexually attractive. She wasn't sure if her thoughts fed her heightening excitement accurate portrayals of V's actions should he be faced with an encounter like this… he had never once discussed romance with her; not romance in the sexual context since he first met her. So hearing his bear like growling voice making slow moans as her mouth, breasts and heated opening moved against him in an erotic dance may have been her brain falsifying it in lieu of wishing it to really happen, but it sounded lovely and felt even more so. He smells good, even in her head, a soft musk like smell… like a sort of patchouli but not as strong and pungent. Evey buried herself into him deeper and he groaned again, tilting his head back as her shoulder came up to nuzzle under his chin and her hips rolled against the stiffness between his legs and she could nearly feel the sensation that could provide just standing there looking down at him. Would he be embarrassed to know what she was thinking and fantasizing about him? Would he like it or find it trite? She pulled herself away from the steamy vision and found her eyes haven't moved from the dark points of his eyes. How long had she stood their looking at him while she dreamed of seducing him and he surrendered to her so willingly?_

_"Goodnight, V." She shook and said in a subdued manner, hating for all she had gone through that a display of love or even lust was harder for her than the thought of death. She turned away jerkily and walked around the couch and as she did, she brought the knuckles of her right hand where they came down and started to curve back up to her palm over the length of his forearm where it rested on the arm of the couch and proceeded toward her room._

_"Sleep well, Evey." V said in that velvet sonnet of a voice, not turning his head, not having too. He knew with it he would momentarily stop her. She did. It seemed a justifying means of repaying her the coy action of running her fingers over his arm, tempting his reserve when he had so little left where she was concerned. She paused; will pulling her back toward the destination of her room, desire yanking her back insistently to him. V wanted her just as much as she wanted him. He could tell… he would be a complete fool and blind if he couldn't feel her womanly desires wafting from her. He could smell her desire, feeling it scorching his already scarred skin._

_He felt her struggles but sought not to end it. He watched her for the indeterminate length of time stand there and resisting her natural craving to seduce him. He wasn't a mind reader and he could not see it like a projector in her head the things that she was thinking that puffed her lips, swelled her breasts so they peaked hard at the tips and gave her that misty glow of a woman so overcome with sexual aspiration she was rapt by it. He wondered what she was imagining that would seem to take her breath away the way it had. Thrill of anticipation kept the fire alive and he knew she would not be able to suffer her torturous yearning of him for much longer, judging by the plumpness of her lips and breasts, the heat from her body. He knew for that moment, he would not be alone that night as her basic instinct as a woman took control of her sanity, her conscious mind and claimed his as well._

_He would not… could not stop her if she buckled and came to him. He too rose off the couch; body feeling strange, odd twinges he had forgotten existed, tingles and pulses of blood in places he'd not thought of in years. His masquerade couldn't hide how hot he too had become under the half lidded heaviness of her steamy gaze. He may have walked to his room alone, looking back over his shoulder, wanting to see Evey standing there, and she wasn't, but his head… his ideas were down the adjoining but opposite hall in what used to be his spare room; now hers, to her… envisioning her leaning on the door, wishing she would hear him walking down the hall to her. Perhaps she was hoping that he would burst through the door and sweep her off her feet and carry her to the bed, lay her down and make slow and torturous love to her all night long in the dark and shadowed underground where the only other voices was the sounds of their love making echoing back to them from the empty corners and high ceilings._

_(14) "Into my world of darkness and silence, you brought light and music. When you lit my candle, I began to see and understand the taste and texture of love. For the first time."V's voice seemed to drip with the moisture of his lust and passion, a body alight that had long been so dry, like the voice that spoke the words unheard but for the art surrounding him was as brittle as sun dried wood._

_No matter… V was patient. He had to be. Evey, his delicate flower that he nearly broke beyond recall, had risen from her ashes, and wanted him instead of hating him, the sumptuousness of her desire blistering his hunger to a fine peek… no… if it was meant to happen, he would not be the one to stop it. She had chosen to love him rather than hate him for what he had done. Maybe not the actions he performed on her, but for the lesson he taught her. And he fell for her with every passing moment of pity and anger he felt for himself as he tortured her… very nearly killed her. He wondered… if she did not break, would he have allowed it to continue. He swallowed deep in his throat. He didn't want to think of this now._

_His leather clad hand brushed the walls as he passed through the halls of the home he has known for twenty years and never once did he ever consider feeling so lost and confused since his time in Larkhill. He didn't feel like himself, the man, the idea he had long since maintained he is. He felt like a love sick fool struck dumb by cupid's arrow. He had never entertained notions of being romantically tied to anyone, his mind and life so singular in purpose for too long. Until Evey came along and then everything changed._

_Was she now laying in her bed… thinking of him as heavily as he was thinking of her? He wondered if she was touching herself, wishing it was his fingers pleasing her. He turned back to look down the hall toward the main gallery, looking as if he was pondering just going back and assuming control of her pleasure. But he didn't. He knew what would happen if he just broke that final string that still bound him to his purpose. The one that made him remember the 5th of November. To go to her may imply he had other objectives… not to her but to himself. He did not want to be the one to prove his thoughts and actions and desires had gone a slightly different path over the last year compared to what he believed and sought for the previous nineteen before Evey first asked him "who are you?!"As she sat on the alley floor with the pitiful can of mace in her slender and beautiful fingers._

_"Who…? Who is but the form following the function of 'what' and what I am is a man in a mask." V heard himself answer in a playfully acerbic manner. He was just a man in a mask to her at the time, a crazy person, she insinuated, but now he had gone from captor, to friend, to ally, to teacher, to torturer… and now… and equal, a lover in the year he had known her._

_He turned away from the direction she was. If it was going to happen, he would not stop it… He had not the power to stop fate in its tracks. He had not the power to refuse his destiny, which he believed was lay bare before him long before Evey came to him. She was his calm before the storm, and no more departed from his fate than the night of the 5th, when twenty long years of planning and aiming would come into fruition._

*/*/*

She gingerly, half expecting the door to be pushed shut again or unable to move, opened the door and it gave easily, swinging inward at her palms touch. The room was in complete darkness sans the soft light now filtering into the space. Still, the light was not enough to illuminate everything but she could see the corner of his bed however could not make him out from the darkness above it. She stepped in, feeling like time had slowed to a crawl, and her heart beat ten times lower than usual though she was sure it was beating a mile a minute.

The only sound was her hammering heart and shaky breaths as she approached the foot of the bed. As her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, she could see out of the black, the manifestation of white rising up like a ghost from a point higher up near the head of the bed. He was lying there… or at least his mask was. She could hear him breathing slightly; the soft inhale and exhale of one who may be sleeping, or pretending to be. Really? He slept with his mask on? She found that an odd thing, but perhaps he didn't before she came into his life, fearing being seen, his disfigured face bared to her and send her running like a frightened dog.

She pushed the thought out of her head. She didn't want the idea of his insecurity about himself to mar the moment that could possibly change things for them forever. She put her smooth warm knee on the satin covers of V's bed. The mattress was firm and her light form barely made the bed shift at all.

She crawled, tiger-like over the bed, her hands coming to meet the side of his leg, which she found was covered, perhaps not in his usual suit, but something lighter that could breathe as he sleeps. She came up higher on the bed and as she did, her eyes adjusted more so she could actually see the detail of the black arched eyebrows, the curled up mustache and the little beard below that pink lip that attracted her so, his head angled toward her.

She came to settle at his side looking down at his 'face', uncertainty on her own. She licked her lips and placed a tentative hand on his chest, feeling it raise and fall slowly. He didn't move so far, he had not made any motion that he knew she was there. He lay still… calm. He knew she'd come, that was why he left his mask on, otherwise it would be off, his door would be locked and he would be under the covers. He was expecting this… and his expectations were right. He could feel her shaking, so scared, anticipation maybe is what made her tremble, but when her hand came to rest on his chest, his heart bounded. He was surprised she didn't recoil from it. Lastly he could not deny that had she not come to him… he would have been hard pressed to stop himself from going to her, visiting her in her room, looming over her small form, lustily passionate as every bit of his once dormant seed of manhood seemed to rush to a head like a raging bull on fire.

"V?" She whispered softly, her hand slid slowly down, the points of her fingers coming to rest just under his sternum.

"V…' she said even quieter. "Tell me you know I'm here. I want to hear you say it." She said. Somehow she knew he was awake, he didn't strike her as someone who slept heavily. His hidden arm on the other side came up and gently took her hand that lay on his stomach, which when slightly removed to accompany his own hand, made the flesh and muscle under it tremble.

"I knew you'd come, Evey." V said breathily, his hand nearest her coming up to touch her thin shapely neck. She felt a burning at his touch that spread from the point his gloved hand made contact on her jugular, down her spine and settled in her center, bare… warm… and wet. She barely knew how to respond to it… the feeling. All she knew was she loved it. Her eyes were glistening even before his fingers could touch her, but when they had in such a soft and romantic manner, she bit her lip and let one fall out over her cheek.

"I've thought of this moment… how it would play out. But now that I am here…"Evey stammered and watched as he lifted into a half sitting position, his face angled up to hers. She could really feel his breath now; feel more heat waft off him than she had ever felt. It was intoxicating as her eyes roved over the more prominent part, being the mask on his face, loving it… loving him.

"One never knows of where the road of anticipation would lead us, Evey. I can tell plainly by human instinct that you are attracted to me. I know you felt my attraction to you in turn… or you would not be my visitor in the night, gracing my lonely bedroom with your delicious presence." V was a master with words when manipulated by his throaty purring voice… Evey felt every nerve in her body vibrate, her womanhood clenching with dire need as he spoke. She could barely articulate a coherent thought after that that would sound savory and delectable, she'd sound uncultured and dim. She leaned forward, her free hand coming up to touch the chin of the mask gently as she traced a gentle line over the cold metal nose with the tip of her own.

He reacted so softly to the gesture that she was surprised it would have that effect. He hitched a little, taking in deep but soft shallow breaths as he lay back in the bed, her right thigh coming over him and settling on his other side so her warm center lay pressed against him, just above his crotch. She leaned down over him, taking the sides of the mask in her hands and lowering her mouth to it. Her sweet and warm lips touched the slightly less cold mask and she felt herself spiral wildly. There was something about this that was so intensely erotic, perhaps it was the tenseness of his hands on her hips, the clench of his body or the little moan… barest of sounds… that came from him when she kissed him. Her fingers slid down over the jaw of the mask, fingers catching on the soft silky strands of his hair as she moved, her lips still touching the Guy Fawkes mask, but there was a space between where she breathed his air into her lungs and allowed him to breathe in her air.

His body rose slightly, as if inflating from the magnitude of her gesture. He knew her enough to guess that she would not force or even ask him to remove the mask, and if kissing the mask was good enough for her, it was good enough for him… but she took it further, finding ways around the barrier of metal to still connect with the warm moisture of his mouth by inhaling his lungful of air and in turn, giving him hers.

"Evey… you amaze me." V said, sounding unlike himself, stunned perhaps by her willingness to improvise in light of his situation. She pulled back only enough to let her eyes settle on where his were.

"I'm acting on what my human instinct tells me, V…" She said with a high temperature in her tone, burrowing into his chest, her fingers caressing his neck, feeling only small burn welts there that were less prominent than his hands. V took a moment to enjoy the touch of her skin to his. His hands slid up her sides, feeling every rib under his palms before he gently took her wrists.

(12) "_Such is my love, to thee I so belong, that for thy right myself will bear all wrong_."V said in an equally heated tone. She smiled at him and lowered her mouth to his exposed neck.

"My Shakespeare. _I love thee - I love thee, 'Tis all that I can say it is my vision in the night, my dreaming in the day. (13)"_ She said. He chuckled softly.

"Thomas Hood~" He managed to whisper before her mouth was over his neck and he moaned softly, tipping his head back to offer her more of the skin he exposed. Her tongue came out to draw elegant wet circles over his Adam's apple and back along his real jaw where her nose came up to dip under the fabricated hair that smelt pleasant and found an earlobe she never seen ,but met it pleasantly with a nip of her teeth that drew out a grunt from the man under her.

"V, love your precious guilt.' Evey said huskily as she drew her hands down his chest, feeling his contours that weren't being touched by the length of her torso pressed to him already. 'You made me what I am… and made me feel what I do." She heard him make a strangled sound in his throat, not unlike someone trying to choke back a cry of pleasured anguish. His hands came to meet hers down near his waist.

"No poetry this time, Evey… I won't hide~' V started but she cut him off by sitting up slightly and looking down into his masked face directly. He could see her expression was pointed…serious.

"I'm not asking you to take off your clothing or your mask. I don't need to see you, my certainty of feeling comes from here,' she touched his chest over his heart, and then placed her fingers at his temple. "… And here, whatever I may have seen in you over the last year has changed from one emotion to the next, you confused me… you scared me… you made me want you and hate you all at once, V. How does someone love and hate another?" She said. His hands again took her wrists and he shook his head.

"I wish to apologize for the hell I put you through Evey if it wasn't meant to make you stronger… to make you understand that you wore a mask, just like me. I wished to remove it from you." He paused for a moment, turning his head away from the weight of her heavy glance, painfully and lustfully aware that her warm womanhood was pressed to him. "It's not like me who am tainted and scarred. You said it yourself. I am sick… evil. You can't remove my mask because the man beneath has died when I left Larkhill. What came from the ashes that day was a monster… a cruel and vengeful beast. You are renewed; you came from your ashes… beautiful, a phoenix rather than my more unsavory ugly duckling." V said as she lowered her head, ear to his chest, arms coming down to encircle his ribs, tucking up under him a little so her hands were between his back and the bed.

"Student and teacher… that is what it seems like. You had to teach me a hard lesson. The things I said weren't right, V. You're not a monster." She said softly, aching for him yes, but not willing to break him like this, not like he broke her. His hands came up to close around her comfortingly, the angle of his head bringing the jaw of the mask down to rest at the top of her head.

"I won't ask you to leave. I find comfort in your presence, Evey… there are many hours before us that would otherwise be spent in silence and alone. We can find each other in the dark tonight."

Evey lifted her head to look up at him, sliding up his body slowly and kissed his neck before coming up to level herself with his face.

"But we have." She said and brushed her mouth over the mouth slit careful to breath out at that moment before she brought her face down again to claim the delectable neck she found tasted every bit as delicious as she thought it would. Her hands traveled down his arms, bringing her palms to his. He was still, and if it wasn't for his breathing she may have thought he was a doll. But as his hands opened flat against hers, they trembled gently.

She kissed his fingertips slowly, paying close attention to each as they passed before her lips. Both hands slipped up the soft material of his sleeve so that her fingertips slid under the rim of the glove. She didn't hesitate and he didn't pull away. No sense in being uncomfortable about his hands, she had already seen them. They were pink and warped white flesh twisted in strange circles over the tissue, but they weren't as bad as he felt they were. However she knew it was something he would have to overcome on his own when it came to the rest of his body. It was just down to her to show she wasn't disgusted by it.

As her fingers came up under the arm band of the glove, she watched him, intuitively looking for a flinch of movement that he would pull away but he didn't. The glove started to come loose from his fingers slowly. A sticky sort of gasp escaped his throat as her teeth took the tip of the index finger and started to pull up on it, freeing his wrist from the leather. Once his fingers came free of the sheaths of the glove, she held to his wrist and pulled the rest of it off painfully slow. The glove fell to the bed with barely a sound as she brought her palm to his bare scarred flesh. His hand was hot but dry. Smooth but calluses and ridges from the burns made trails she could trace, as if each one told a story.


End file.
